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Abstract
Yumeno Kyūsaku (1889–1936) has been labeled a writer of henkaku detective fiction since submitting his debut story, ‘Ayakashi no tsuzumi’ (‘The demonic hand drum’), to Shinseinen magazine for a competition in 1926. The term henkaku is rooted in the historical context of the 1920s and 1930s as a modifier of a subgenre of mystery fiction that eschewed puzzle-solving in favor of gothic atmospheres and strange happenings. This article considers the relationship between henkaku and gendered, early twentieth-century discourses of hentai (abnormality). Transitioning from an early emphasis on ‘abnormal sexology’ to ‘abnormal psychology’, Kyūsaku used the affective potential of visceral henkaku narratives to not only entertain readers, but to shock them into an examination of their own psyches and the limits of modern, rational thought. Kyūsaku's skepticism toward the ‘isms’ of his day resonated with a new audience, bringing the spirit of henkaku into the post-Second World War period when his works were rediscovered in the context of 1960s sub- and counter-culture.
Notes
1. The six judges were writers Edogawa Ranpo (1894–1965), Kōga Saburō (1893–1945), Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke (1892–1931), Kosakai Fuboku (1890–1929), Nobuhara Ken (1892–1977) and Shinseinen editor-in-chief Morishita Uson (1890–1965).
2. See Saito (Citation2007, pp. 131–142) for a discussion of the transition from tantei to suiri in the immediate postwar period.
3. The hen of hentai (変態) and henkaku (変格) is the same character (変), which is used to indicate something that changes or is strange.
4. Christine Marran notes that Freud and Jung had been introduced to Japan just a year prior, in 1912 (Marran Citation2007, pp. 115–116).
5. Though Habuto and Sawada found success after producing this bestselling book, neither was part of the academic mainstream. Habuto would commit suicide in 1929 after becoming involved in a scandal involving a ‘bogus male sex-enhancement medicine’ and Sawada was discredited as a fraud (Driscoll Citation2010, pp. 152–153).
6. Chūkansei, the word used for the German grenzzustände (border states), translates into ‘intermediate’ or ‘inter-level’ in English.
7. Other common topics in hentai shinri included nensha (spirit photography), tōshi (‘seeing through’/second sight) and senrigan (clairvoyance).
8. See Wada (Citation2006) for a discussion of Kokyō’s earlier aspirations to be a novelist as one reason for his success in spreading his ideas on hentai shinri.
9. This final quip from Kyūsaku is a play on words. The Japanese phrase, osashiai ga attara gomen nasai, is a homophone for, ‘I apologize if you've stabbed/pricked each other’.
10. For adult women, typical changes included anxiety, being easily excitable, depression and rapid mood swings that include anger, joy and jealousy. Women naturally prone to hysteria might also show signs of manic depression, alcoholism, nymphomania or kleptomania. According to European studies that Kokyō cites (including Lombroso), over 90% of women caught committing crimes were in the middle of their menstrual periods. Some of the crimes were minor, such as petty theft, but women who committed arson and murder were more likely to do so during this period (Kokyō Citation2006 [1919], pp. 183–184).
11. In another section from The Depraved Age of Tokyoites, called Josei no jiyūkaihō to kyoei shōrei (‘Female liberation and the encouragement of vanity’), Kyūsaku identified vanity as the first part of a two-step path to becoming a furyō shōjo (delinquent girl). Tokyo, as the ‘true home of vanity’ and garish styles, fostered intense competition that led to petty theft, which led to worse crimes such as extortion. Kyūsaku saw fault in the girl's schools that seemed to be seeking popularity through the encouragement of koseisonchō (self-esteem) and jiyūkaihōshugi (liberation) rather than guiding students from a correct understanding of modern philosophy (CitationYumeno 1979b [1925], p. 288).
12. This story is the first in a volume, Shōjo jigoku (Girl's Hell, 1934), comprising three separate stories, all of which depict the fate of young women who are driven to suicide.
13. Matsuko is a minor character, but is described as having ‘mental faculties different from those of normal women’, perhaps due to her avid reading of a magazine, Kaiki shumi (Taste for the Bizarre), in her school days. She is the one who first suggests to Dr. Usuki that Yuriko is a suspicious character (Yumeno Citation1969d [1934], p. 125).
14. This edition kicked off the magazine's tenth year. Editor-in-chief Nobuhara Ken had requested a 30-page manuscript from Kyūsaku, only to receive 170 (it took up 76 pages in the magazine, including illustrations). Nobuhara printed the story in its entirety and wrote in the editor's comments section at the back, ‘Presenting a tour de force epic such as [‘Oshie no kiseki’] is unprecedented, but we cry out without reservation: “If you don't read this, keep quiet with your criticism of taishū bungaku [mass literature]!”’ (Nobuhara Citation1929, p. 448).
15. Among the elements common to both stories are: plots that feature traditional arts and forms of stage performance; mental trauma and the manifestation of strong emotions in uncanny ways into the physical realm; timelines that track the fates of bloodlines over the course of generations (including the discovery of a lost sibling); climactic scenes in which a family member makes the ultimate sacrifice so that the protagonist can survive; multi-voiced epistolary narratives (medical texts and magazine and newspaper articles in addition to the first person letters that made up the majority of the stories).
16. Oshie is a type of handicraft similar to brocading that was popular in the Edo and early Meiji periods. Oshie are similar to stuffed brocades that are sewn and glued together, and usually mounted on thick paper or a wooden board. Often in the style of Edo-period ukiyo-e, oshie are intricate and vivid, and it was common for artists to depict scenes or characters from famous plays and stories.
17. Kyūsaku also used the motif of faces appearing and disappearing several months prior in ‘Hito no kao’ (‘A person's face’), a wonderful example of henkaku detective fiction in which a brooding atmosphere dominates. A precocious six year-old, Chieko, projects an unsettling mix of sweet and sinister as she seemingly plays her parents against each other. As with ‘Miracle of the brocade dolls’, the mystery lies in murky motives and the ambiguity between appearances and truth.
18. For example, the reader can piece together from information scattered throughout the story that Toshiko was born exactly ten months after Handayū’s visit to Fukuoka, yet Toshiko never points this out. In another example, Toshiko gives evidence that suggests her mother did, in fact, give birth to twins, only to have the wet nurse cover it up. Yet one more hint that Toshiko and Hanjirō are twins comes in one of her tubercular hallucinations. She sees them ‘in the distance, blue and vast, the sky or perhaps the ocean… waiting as if to absorb our intertwined bodies, both of us coughing up blood’, a vision that gave her an ‘indescribable, pleasant feeling’ (Kyūsaku Citation1969c p. 127). This image of their intertwined bodies can be interpreted as erotic – and there are repeated references in Toshiko's letter to this sort of relationship between them – but it could also be an allusion to their time together in the womb. The erotic attraction Toshiko expresses toward Hanjirō – who resembles her mother – can be seen as an expression of her repressed feelings toward her mother.
19. Gonda Manji (Citation1977) suggests that the henkaku style was suited to these characteristics because the lack of a level playing field between real-life investigators and criminals due to the heavy authority vested in officials under an absolutist emperor system meant that most crimes were solved through ‘confession’ rather than serious sleuthing.
20. Poe also had a strong influence on Tanizaki Jun'ichirō (1886–1965), who articulated the basis of what would become ‘mass literature’ in his 1927 debate with Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892–1927). Tanizaki experimented with gothic and detective fiction styles early in his career, and Edogawa Ranpo, in turn, saw Tanizaki's writing as a model when he began writing.
21. Although Ranpo's oshie story was not published until after Kyūsaku's, he had been talking about writing one since early 1927. In his review of ‘Miracle of the brocade dolls’, Ranpo wrote that he would have to give up on his own story because, ‘my oshie, even in its conception, falls well short of this oshie’ (Edogawa Citation1929, p. 138). As such, Ranpo did not write ‘The man traveling with the brocade portrait’ in response to Kyūsaku, but he may have found inspiration. Yamoto Masayuki notes that Toshiko's mother started using Toshiko as a model from the mid-1880s, and by comparing timelines in the two stories, speculates that the O-shichi doll in Ranpo's story might have been made by Toshiko's mother to resemble Toshiko (Yamoto Citation2005, p. 40). Toshiko was the same age in 1895 as O-shichi in Ranpo's story.
22. Dogura magura was believed to be a self-published work for many years, which added to the book's underground status in the 1960s, but Nishihara Kazumi (Citation1992, pp. 652–653), using letters and Kyūsaku's diary, has asserted that this was not the case.
23. In 1988, a group of 22 people (scholars, authors, critics, poets, etc.) were asked to respond to a questionnaire (Ankēto Citation1988), and they gave Dogura magura the most votes (11) for the question that asked respondents to list their top three Kyūsaku stories. In addition to the interest shown by artists and critics, a more general audience has shown a continued interest in Dogura magura, too. Aozora bunko, the largest open-source online library of full-text Japanese works, lists access rankings dating back to 2009 (Aozora bunko akusesu ranking), and Dogura magura has remained near the top: 2009 – No. 6; 2010 – No. 5; 2011 – No. 3; 2012 – No. 6; 2013 – No. 6; 2014 – No. 5. The texts ranked above Dogura magura are by authors—Natsume Sōseki, Dazai Osamu, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Miyazawa Kenji—who would almost certainly be recognized even by people who do not read literature.
24. See Kawana (Citation2005) and Nakamura (Citation2002) for further analysis of the link between science and the exploitation of people with mental illness in Dogura magura.
25. Kyūsaku's brother-in-law was a student at the Kyushu University medical school that housed the psychology department, and students often made visits to his house. See Fukano (Citation1994) for a history of Kyūsaku's relationship to the psychology department at Kyushu University and the influence on Dogura magura.
26. The word saimon refers to addresses or recitations to the gods in Shinto or Buddhist practice or to popular songs from long ago.
27. Three years prior to Dogura magura, Kyūsaku wrote a short story called ‘Kichigai jigoku’ (‘Hell of madness’), which was similar in structure and thematic organization. ‘Hell of madness’ was his first story to appear in a mainstream publication with a national circulation, Kaizō, and was likely Kyūsaku's introduction to readers who did not follow detective fiction.
28. See Yasko (Citation1997), especially Chapter 5, ‘Science and Political Practice after Rationalism: The Zenkyōtō Critique of Science’, for an analysis of the antagonistic attitudes to science harbored by many youth in the 1960s.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Nathen Clerici
Nathen Clerici is at SUNY New Paltz, Languages, Literatures & Cultures, 800 Hawk Drive, Old Main 308C, New Paltz. NY 12561 USA. He may be contacted at [email protected]